Africa's Leadership in Global Development Debates:Contribution of the Common African Position tothe Post-2015 Development Agenda and SustainableDevelopment Goals

The adoption of the Common African Position (CAP) by the African Union in 2014 marked a transformative shift in Africa'sengagement with global development, shaping the post-2015 development agenda and sustainable development goals (SDGs).Despite its significance, the CAP's contributions remain underacknowledged in mainstream narratives. This study addressesthis epistemic gap by examining the CAP's emergence and influence through an elite interview with a key policymaker in-volved in its formulation and a detailed documentary analysis of AU and UN records. The findings show that via the CAPAfrican countries made an important contribution to the SDG process. Evidence from the interview indicates that Africannegotiators used the CAP as a shared framework to articulate common priorities and strengthen Africa's collective bargainingposition in global negotiations. A documentary analysis was also undertaken to validate these claims, and confirms that theCAP's principles emphasising social inclusion, environmental sustainability and equitable global partnerships influencedthe framing and content of several SDG targets. The CAP presented a unified African voice and vision of development, high-lighting the interaction between the social, economic and environmental aspects of development for future global agendas.We argue that, as equity, multilateralism and development face challenges, acknowledging African ideas and perspectivesbecomes crucial to redress epistemic inequalities and to envision alternative solutions for addressing the development chal-lenges of the continent and the world in a context of contested multilateralism.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited.© 2025 The Author(s). Sustainable Development published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.